


Binary Dilemma

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 10:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1262761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok. This one's... not exactly explicit, but it is unmistakable and it is sexual. Poor Mycroft has a little bit of a problem. But not all problems are that difficult to resolve. </p><p>This one starts angsty, but is ultimately cheerful and ends well, even if it is a bit raunchy around the edges. </p><p>I debated whether to rate it mature or teens and up. I picked teens and up as it's not graphic and I think most teens these days know enough to follow the logic and humor without fainting. That said, it is not hurt by having a mature and experienced knowledge of interactive sexual activity. Gender not so much an issue, though it's Mycroft and Greg, and thus obviously M/M.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Binary Dilemma

“No. It’s not you,” Mycroft said, feeling defeat in his bones and blood. “You’re fine.”

Lestrade had scrambled up the mattress and sat with his back braced against the headboard, looking baffled and forlorn. “Oh, come on, My. Every time I think we’re getting there, you lose the thread. I can feel you drift out of sync. What the hell am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing. You’re not doing anything wrong,” Mycroft insisted. He rolled off the bed and snatched his robe off the post at the bed foot. “It’s just…” He pulled the robe on, wrapping it tight around him, and cinched the sash tight. “It’s not you.” He padded to the bathroom and went in, closing the door behind him, then turned on the cold water, letting it run. He leaned against the door and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t doing this very well, he thought. But, then, it wasn’t something one did well. In past lovers had either not noticed at all, or had noticed and quickly left, sometimes to Mycroft’s regret, but never to his surprise.

He heard the mattress creak in the other room, and footsteps approach. There was a tap at the door.

“My? You all right?”

“I’m fine.” He cupped his hands under the tap and splashed the icy water over his face, trying to chill the blush away. He filled the bathroom glass and held it to his forehead, between his brows. “Really. I’ll be out in a moment.”

He was going to have to tell Lestrade, he thought. He’d let other lovers figure it out for themselves and leave with whatever ego-wounds they saw fit to claim for themselves. He didn’t want to do that to Greg, though. The man was trying too hard to do right by Mycroft. It wasn’t his fault it was an uphill battle.

Lestrade was pacing in the room beyond. Mycroft couldn’t stall much longer. He poured off the slightly warmed water, ran another ice-cold glass, drank it down in one long draft, ran another, sipped a few sips, then put it down, squared his shoulders, then turned and opened the door. He looked out into the dim bedroom.

It was a simple room—one of the few ways he and Sherlock shared tastes. If not quite Spartan, it was at least austere. Modest in size with smooth hardwood floors, a small hooked rug, a double mattress in a stark four-poster bed with clean, almost Nordic lines. Two dressers. Two armchairs by the double window. Little more aside from two night stands. Lestrade had gone to stand in front of the windows, between the two chairs. He’d wrapped the duvet from the bed around him, for lack of a robe of his own. Mycroft pattered across the chill floorboards to stand beside him, glancing sideways at a face picked out in pale moonlight.

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said.

“I’m sorry, too,” Lestrade said. “Is it medical? Or just tonight things not working? Or can I do things better? Or…”

“Really. It’s not you. Look, please, sit down.” Mycroft eased himself into one of the chairs, setting the example.

Lestrade sighed and followed suit. His eyes met Mycroft’s across the space between, blackness picked out with soft glints of reflected light. “I can leave, if you like. I’d like to try again, sometime. Or—if it’s just not the right match, I’d at least like to stay friends."

Mycroft shook his head. He closed his eyes, leaned back into the armchair, and gripped the leather-upholstered arms of the chair tight. “Lestrade, it’s not… It’s nothing like that. It’s not you, it’s not a medical condition, it’s not a bad night.” He tumbled into truth in a miserable rush. “It’s very simple, my dear. I’m a catastrophically bad lover.”

Lestrade snorted and choked. It was at least a second before he managed to bring an urge to laugh under remarkable control. Mycroft was tempted to recommend him to the Foreign Office diplomatic staff on the basis of his tact alone. After a moment he managed to say, quietly, “But, Mycroft, you were quite skilled. I promise. I mean, I can’t claim to have sampled ‘three continents,’ but you weren’t failing to make the grade.”

“On the contrary,” Mycroft said, still refusing to look. It was easier with eyes closed. “I’m quite a disaster. Probably inherent—part and parcel with my mental talents and my focus. In terms of technique, yes, I’m capable. Even reasonably adept and creative, if I do say so myself. I’m just—“ He sighed. “I find it remarkably difficult to enjoy the act and at the same time perform it to anything like a reasonable standard.”

Lestrade made a small interrogative noise, of the sort that pointedly seeks more information before committing to anything so dangerous as words.

Mycroft slid deeper into the chair, in the sort of position that would have had his mother chittering about permanent curvature of the spine had he been at home. “I can enjoy sex, or I can perform sex. I seem unable to quite master doing both at the same time.”

He was met with a prolonged period of silence, before Lestrade, in a voice strangling with diplomatic control, said, “Ok. Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You like sex just fine.”

“Oh, quite.” Mycroft knew he sounded like Eeyore, but it was hard not to given the circumstances. “Very little not to like, after all. Yes, a bit messy. Yes, a bit undignified. But all said and done? One of God’s better notions, and a lovely way to round out an evening.”

“And no medical dysfunctions? You can, er…”

“Yes. I can er. And um. I can even manage to ooooh, on a good evening.”

“Tch,” Lestrade clucked, amusement finally seeping past diplomatic constraint. “Sarky bastard. Seriously, I’m trying to figure this out. All the functions are there. And you like it. You just…”

“In your own words, I lose the thread,” Mycroft sighed. “The more I like it, the less I’m…” He finally opened his eyes, looking sorrowfully over at the man he’d rather hoped would be his lover. “I tend to lose track, you see. I do try. It’s quite reasonable for a lover to expect an interactive event, not a partner in a state of drooling, near-comatose ecstasy. It’s just the more I try for interactive, the less I manage the ecstatic bit. And the more I manage the ecstatic bit, the more I fail at the interaction.” He was glad the room was dark, as he could feel the blush rising. “I do try to get as much voluntary action in early as possible. I do find it erotic, even if it does tend to subvert my own response. And at least that way a lover…you…get some benefit. One does hope not to be selfish.”

The silence fell again. Mycroft felt the weary gloom of having failed again—this time with someone who, much as he hated to admit it, mattered. Then, voice quivering, Lestrade spoke again.

“So…the more you like it, the more…the less… I mean… I don’t know what I mean. When you like it….?” He let a silent question float in the air. Mycroft could almost swear he could see it glow in the dark.

“The more I like it, the more I lie there like a beached porpoise and make small helpless moaning noises,” he said, sullenly. “Pant. Drool. Roll my eyes back in my skull. Occasionally scream. It’s really quite demoralizing.”

Lestrade’s voice was quivering with amusement. “And you’ve found this a problem, then?”

“I do try to return the favor,” Mycroft said, knowing he was pouting as badly as Sherlock, but unable to stop himself. “I do like the activity. As I said, it’s particularly nice as prelude, and not at all unwelcome as postlude. I’m not able to coordinate the middle passages, as it were. I’m superb at overture and encore. It’s the actual opus, though, that counts.”

“During which, if your partner’s competent, you, er, imitate beached mammalian sea life and squeal.”

“You do seem to have got the gist of it. My partner doesn’t even have to be all that competent. I’m, er, a bit of a lightweight. Easily amused.”

In the silence that followed, Mycroft thought sadly that it was a shame, really. He’d been very comfortable in Lestrade’s company, and very happy to try once more to get it all to work in sync in hopes of hanging on to this particular man. He’d tried so hard, too, working to do what appeared to be the equivalent of performing higher mathematics while simultaneously translating Cantonese code…something he’d once proven was just beyond his limits. He pulled the robe just a bit tighter around his shoulders, and started preparing the speech that would give poor Lestrade a tactful exit from the relationship….

Only to hear the chair on the other side of the window creak, and Lestrade purr, “You know, Mycroft, I think you’re _really_ going to have to demonstrate this problem of yours more completely. For example, the panting…”

Mycroft sat up, unnerved. “I… I’m not sure… Lestrade?”

“And… moaning? You’re sure there’s moaning?” Lestrade was rumbling like a delighted tiger with a spectacularly juicy beefsteak.

“Um…”

“And screaming? How difficult would you say it is to rate screaming?”

Mycroft blinked. “You’re…”

“Looking forward to it. Yes.” Lestrade chuckled. “Sure, treat me to overtures and encores, if you like. But…” His voice broke up, then, in a shaken growl. “Oh, love, I am looking forward to this. You have no idea.”

Mycroft blinked. “You’re sure it’s not a problem?”

Lestrade laughed, then, a deep, breathy sound in the darkness. “I’m sure. It’s not you, love. You’re fine. Now for the love of God get over on that bed and demonstrate before I’m the one screaming.”


End file.
